1850 to 1860: Part Two

                                                          1850 to 1860
                                               A Fire Bell in the Night
                                                                                                  Part Two
 
            The events that dominated Pierce’s failed administration were the Kansas-Nebraska Acts and “Bleeding Kansas.”  This was a Civil War dress rehearsal staged in the new territories.  The legislation granted Kansas and Nebraska  “popular sovereignty” to determine if they would enter the Union as “free” or “slave” states.  Because Kansas, in particular, bordered on slave-state Missouri but was easily accessible from Iowa and other Northern (“free”) states, it became a battleground (hence, “Bleeding Kansas”).  The town of Lawrence, Kansas was sacked by pro-slavery forces (trying to dismantle the anti-slavery “Jayhawker” militia).  In retaliation, John Brown, the fervent abolitionist, led a “massacre” of (five) settlers at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, and the war was on!  Kansas became a battleground from that point on, until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

            In 1854, as the Whig Party and the Know-Nothings lost steam a distinctively anti-Slavery party emerged in the North, the Republicans.  From early on, led by Abraham Lincoln, Salmon Chase, and John Fremont, the Republicans established themselves as the major opposition to the pro-slavery, Southern dominated Democratic Party.  As Democratic President James Buchanan took office in March of 1857, the nation was coming apart at the seams and he did nothing during his presidency to prevent that.

            The most significant events during Buchanan’s administration were the Dred Scott Decision (1857), the Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858), John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry (1859) and the secession of South Carolina from the Union (1860).  Buchanan was essentially a spectator to history, watching the final unraveling of the Union during his term.  If you do not recall the details of those events, here’s a quick summary.  Dred Scott v. Sanford was a “landmark” case in all the worst ways.  With the Andrew Jackson appointed Roger Taney serving as Chief Justice (1836-1864), the Court not only found that Scott, a slave who had been taken to free territory, could not sue for his freedom based on having lived in a Free State but also declared the federal government could not put restrictions on extending slavery to Western territories and Blacks were not --- and could never be --- citizens of the United States!

            The Lincoln-Douglas debates (also called the Great Debates of 1858) were a series of seven debates between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen Douglas for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.  Even though Illinois was a free state, the debates focused on slavery --- particularly its expansion into new territories and states.  While Lincoln ultimately lost the election to Douglas, these debates set the stage for his nomination as the Republican standard-bearer in the 1860 presidential election (and prompted South Carolina to leave the Union).

            John Brown’s Raid on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (subdued by Federal troops commanded by Robert E. Lee) raised great fears among Southern slave-owners.  Brown’s plan was to steal the arms at Harper’s Ferry and distribute them to slaves across the South, fomenting a slave insurrection.  Needless to say, the Raid failed, Brown was captured, tried, and executed.  Despite the Raid’s failure, Brown became a martyr for the abolitionist cause and a demon to Southerners who believed the majority of Northerners were on Brown’s side --- just another string unraveling.

            Finally, the election 1860, resulting in Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 led to the South Carolina “Ordinance of Secession” in December of 1860.  For any who doubt the reason the Civil War was fought (some will still argue it was about “states’ rights,” not slavery), you need only read South Carolina’s Declaration of Immediate Causes:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign {to take oneself/something far way}  the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
 
                 The defense of white (male) supremacy in the United States, which had started with the importation of Africans in 1619, culminated in December of 1860 when the Union --- started with those original 13 colonies --- dissolved.  In April of 1861 the Civil War began in earnest, with South Carolina, representing the Confederate States of America, opening fire on Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

            Revisionist history in the South has attempted to glorify the secession as a “Second War for Independence” and “The War of Northern Aggression.”  It was neither, of course.  It was a war to continue slavery, a war to allow Southern slave owners to maintain their human property.  It was a war in which the casualty estimates range from 618,000 to 720,000 --- the greatest loss of human life in any American war.  It is a war whose wounds are still open, seeping into our daily lives in 2019.